the audience applauded

Instant Favorite.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Hallowed Ground was neither a good or great movie. In my eyes, I'd say it was mediocre. I did like the stylish camera work, there are some haunting moments in the score, the acting is decent considering what they had to work with and there are a few good ideas in the mix. On the other hand, while not bottom-of-the-barrel awful, the effects do still have a rather cheap look to them, the scarecrow is alright but not as menacing as he should be as a result. The characters are clichéd and not really that engaging and the script has a rather stilted nature about it, but the biggest let down was the story, which promised much but was too derivative and dull in alternative to thrilling and atmospheric. All in all, not good and disappointing but not as bad as some have made out. 4/10 Bethany Cox

In the next Star Trek film slated for 2011, Leonard Nimoy's intrepid Spock, again, travels back in time this time to warn the crew of the Starship Voyager of the dangers of the Bad Lands, thus sparing them their encounter with the Caretaker and thus sparing us the tedium of Ethan Phillips' Neelix, the Jar-Jar Binks of the Star Trek universe. I can dream, can't I? It is Ethan Phillips that stars along Jamie Alexander and Brian McNamara in David Benullo's Hallowed Ground, an insufferable exercise in rolled out horror clichés. Please, Ethan, this is what we get from an MFA from Cornell? Hallowed Ground, director David Benullo's second foray into directing since his nearly impossible to track down and deeply creepy (not in a good way creepy) incest fantasy, Cupid, left me with a few questions. Where in Kansas does corn grow on vines? How does one fall from a walk on role in I Know Who Killed Me to a starring role in Hallowed Ground (McNamara)? And how does crap like this get made in the first place? Does the pitch—or pitchfork— for an abortion like this go something like, "Yes, it's Children of the Corn meets Dark Night of the Scarecrow, you know a dense, indecipherable, mish-mash of every horror or slasher film made in the last thirty years." Who thought this was a good idea? At least Cupid had the paraphilic angle (I am truly praying Mr. Benullo doesn't have sisters), Hallowed, however, is early (pre-sobriety) Stephen King vomited up as uninspired horror, though a truly inspired and fervidly presented middle finger to rural, agricultural and Christian Americans. I don't know the man, however, my guess is he's a run-of-the-mill USC or NYU film school type, a typical, unthinking, and blinkered, North Easterner that has never spent time in the Midwest nor interacted with the people of rural America he so crudely portrays. It's a strange kind of bigotry. I'm not personally a religious man, but I find the way Christians are portrayed in this film deeply offensive. Would Mr. Benullo portray Muslim Americans in this kind of light? Unlikely. So that's it. Red state America is populated by mullet sporting, human sacrificing, scarecrow worshipping, Talaxians that grow mutant corn which grows on killer vines. Stay away from this garbage.

HALLOWED GROUND is a peculiar little movie. Good camera work. Decent actors. And dull as watching paint dry.Somebody forgot that the first six letters in "thriller" are t-h-r-i-l-l. The object is to make people's pulses race, not to put the audience to sleep.Elizabeth's car breaks down in a strange (and underpopulated) little town. She gets it to a garage, only to be told that the needed part can't be gotten until tomorrow. Stranded.She goes to a diner and gets into a conversation with a tabloid reporter conveniently in town to do a story on strange events in the area many years ago. The reporter conveniently provides exposition establishing the main conflict that the story will cover.And so we're treated to Elizabeth's adventures trying to escape a crazed cult. So we have a little CHILDREN OF THE CORN, a touch of THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and a dash of those movies Hammer Studios made where Christopher Lee's cult got outsmarted by Peter Cushing. For seasoning add a cute little girl. But no original ideas involved.This would have been a great thirty minute episode of Tales from the Darkside. But stretching it to feature length was just cruel.

Mr. Benullo is certainly evolving as a director. There are lots of bird's eye shots, inset shots and POV--a lot of great camera work, actually, as well as well choreographed action and a very good score. Mr. Benullo can tell a story with his camera. I was impressed by the cast. There were a lot of familiar faces. Nearly all the performances were far superior to what one would expect from direct to DVD fair and the DVD production quality was good, also. There were some interesting computer generated effects as well. Mr. Benullo (the Wizard of Park Dr.) has his chops down. I think Mr. Benullo is a director with a bright future.